Mona Hodgson - [Hearts Seeking Home 01]

by Prairie Song

  But it seemed Garrett still had questions he needed to answer. Could he trust again? Love again? Was he ready to make a home, to start a family?

  “I thought this day would never come.” Garrett held the picnic sack out to her.

  When she reached for their food, he held tight to the sack. Her stomach fluttered as she looked at the pleasing lines of his face.

  “I’m glad you came, Caroline.”

  “On the ride?” She gave their tethered horses a quick glance. “The picnic?”

  “On the walk west.” He let go of the sack, and not certain her legs could hold her up any longer, she sat down with it.

  Garrett lowered himself to the quilt, knelt, and faced her. “I’m glad you ignored my counsel to remain in Saint Charles.”

  “So, you’re glad I’m stubborn?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.” His better-than-gold grin tipped his mouth. “But your persistence did come in handy.”

  “That’s an acceptable answer.” Caroline moistened her dry lips. “I’m glad I came too. On the road. And riding. Now. With you.”

  The glimmer in his hazel eyes told her he might kiss her. Instead, he reached for the sack and handed her a soda biscuit. Silently, they each raised their biscuits to their mouths and took a bite, neither of them looking away. The salty, flaky biscuit was every bit the best she’d ever tasted.

  Garrett lowered his crumbly morsel. “Would you like to marry again?”

  Thankfully, she’d already swallowed her bite, because right now just catching a breath seemed challenge enough. “I didn’t think so,” she said.

  “And now?”

  “I may. If the right man came along.” She gave him a shy smile.

  His eyes widened. “I hope it’s okay that I’m praying I can be that man.”

  She nodded. “Is that a proposal, Captain Cowlishaw?”

  “As a matter of fact, it is. But not a very proper one, I’m afraid.” He rose onto his left knee and reached for her hand. “I didn’t think I would marry again either. But that was before I loved you.”

  Tears of joy welled her eyes. “That, sir, is a proper enough proposal for me.” She clasped Garrett’s other hand then leaned forward, her lips finding his in a kiss that had been well worth the wait.

  When Garrett finally pulled back, he cupped her cheek. “If that’s a yes, I must say, I do favor them.”

  “Yes! Let’s marry. I may have loved you from the day you joined our trail game and said c is for ‘cherub.’ ”

  Riding back to camp, Garrett didn’t think he needed the horse beneath him. He felt like he could float all the way to the Rockies. God had given him a second chance at love, and Caroline had said yes. He’d seen Caroline back to the Kamdens’ camp and returned to his own.

  Caleb sat at the worktable between the Company’s two wagons, engaged in a game of dominoes. Otto Goben sat across from him, tapping his bearded chin. Caleb nodded Garrett’s direction then played his last wooden tile.

  Otto blew out a long breath and looked up at Garrett. “This young man is good!”

  “Thank you, sir.” Caleb shook the man’s hand. “You put up a fine fight.”

  Otto stood and faced Garrett. “I’m the last of eight fellows—all lost to him. Best go check on my animals before supper. Although, supper might be late with all that gasping and tittering going on over at my wagon. A gaggle of women there.”

  “Ah yes, the Sunday quilting circle, or such.” No doubt where Caroline would be going with their news.

  When Caleb started stacking the dominoes, Garrett raised his hand to stop him. “Not so fast. I haven’t had a shot at you yet.”

  “You think you’re good enough?” Caleb said with a grin.

  Otto gave a low whistle. “Boy, oh boy, sorry to miss this battle, but I’ve got to get moving.” He stretched out his back then waved and headed across the pasture.

  Caleb started flipping the dominoes over. Garrett seated himself and joined in.

  “I was a little surprised to see Otto here. You invite him over for a talk, did you?”

  Caleb peered at him. “To talk about you and Caroline Milburn?”

  Garrett chuckled. “That dry humor of yours is the best.”

  “I’m glad you think so.”

  The serious tone in Caleb’s voice no doubt meant he hadn’t talked to Anna today, but Garrett would ask anyway. “I take it you haven’t talked to Anna about last night?”

  “No.” Caleb shook his head and flipped over the last domino. “Only God knows how it will all work out.” He shuffled the tiles in a figure-eight motion. “Feel like I need to give her more time.”

  “Otto tell you that?”

  A grin brightened Caleb’s eyes. “He did.”

  Garrett nodded, giving the dominoes a swirl. “Sounds like good counsel, and from a man who would know.” Each of them pulled their starting pieces and stood them on edge.

  “You and the woman you’re sweet on rode back into town wearing wide smiles.”

  Garrett straightened and sighed. He may as well have a little fun. He wasn’t above distracting Caleb from the game to win. “I think I may have proposed.”

  “You think?” Caleb jerked upright, bumping the table and knocking over most of the tiles. “You may have asked a woman to marry you, and you don’t know for sure?” He scrambled to right his tiles. “How is that possible?”

  Garrett chuckled. “Did I say I think I may have proposed? No, I’m pretty sure I proposed.” He gave Caleb an exaggerated nod. “And she said yes!”

  “It’s about time you smartened up.”

  “What? You’re the one who told me not to get all atwitter over her.”

  “Since when did you start listening to me?” Smiling, Caleb slapped his double six on the table. “You thought you could distract me, with all that woman and marriage talk, didn’t you?”

  “Can’t blame a man for tryin’. Knew that was my only chance.” Garrett smiled then looked Caleb in the eye. “I have a feeling things are going to work out for you and Anna too. Just can’t say how. Or how soon.”

  39

  Wednesday, Anna had taken turns with Großvater. For the past couple of hours, he’d walked holding the lead rope while Anna quietly put one foot in front of the other. Now it was her turn to lead. Mutter had spent most of the day riding on the wagon seat.

  When the wind caught the brim on Großvater’s hat, he pulled it off and shoved it into his back pocket. He looked over his shoulder at Mutter. “Your headache any better, tochter?”

  “Yes. Some. Danke.” Mutter signaled for Anna to slow the oxen. “If you want to ride your horse for a while with the other men, I can walk with Anna.”

  “I thought I might.” Großvater stepped around to the tongue of the wagon and helped Mutter down from the seat. “You didn’t eat much at the stop.”

  “Don’t worry, Vater. I’m only tired.”

  Großvater narrowed his eyes.

  “I’m feeling fine. Did me good to be out of the wind for a spell.”

  He scrubbed his weathered cheek. “With Rhoda Kamden feeling punk again, I—”

  “I’ll eat some bread.” Mutter tied the straps on her bonnet. “Anna will see to it.”

  Anna nodded, remembering the day she’d become her mother’s keeper. Even before Dedrick died. She wasn’t much older than Gabi on the day she’d watched her father walk out and found her mother on the floor, sobbing. That night, her mother had dropped her married name, and they became Gobens.

  “We can’t gossip about you if you’re stuck to us like prairie dust.” Mutter flapped her hand at Großvater. “Now, shoo.”

  Shaking his head, Großvater turned toward the livestock at the back of the train.

  Anna opened her mouth to remind Mutter to eat something but just as quickly remembered her resolve to trust Mutter to take care of herself.

  “Speaking of Rhoda and her ill health, what is she to do with her mother-in-law and all those children when your friend Caroli
ne marries the captain?” Mutter shook her head. “Didn’t you say they were talking about being wed while we’re in Fort Kearney?”

  “That’s what Caroline said.”

  “Well, according to the captain’s announcement, we’ll be at the fort in a couple of weeks. Does she not plan to live with her husband? And, if so, where?” Mutter looked over the land, her brow furrowing. “In the grass?”

  “All good questions, Mutter. I hadn’t thought about it, but with Rhoda and Davonna—”

  “And what of all those men? Is she to live amongst them, and cook for them?”

  Anna smiled. “You know Boney better than that. He’s not going to let her take over his chuck wagon.”

  Mutter snickered. “All this talk of cooking is making me hungry.” She glanced back at the grub box lashed to the far side of the wagon. “If you’ll slow the animals, I’ll get me some bread.”

  Anna obliged her, pulling back on the lead rope and congratulating herself for not nagging Mutter about eating.

  Mutter was at the grub box, when a buckboard rolled up from behind. The dapper gentleman at the reins doffed his top hat as he passed on Anna’s side, his cargo clinking and clattering. Probably headed for the next stage stop or outpost to sell his wares.

  When Anna heard the grub box close, she picked up her pace to match the wagon in front of them.

  Mutter walked up beside her, slipping a crusty bite of bread into her mouth. “I haven’t seen your großvater this satisfied in years.”

  Anna nodded.

  “Even though he lost to Caleb, he said he had a good time playing dominoes on Sunday. It could become a tradition, you know?” Mutter’s eyebrow lifted.

  Anna dipped her chin then glanced at the bread in Mutter’s hand. Mutter may need encouragement to eat today, but Anna didn’t need to be goaded or spurred toward Caleb.

  “And you, Anna, are you glad to be making this trip?”

  Her hesitation surprised her. The trip was her idea. Upon her insistence. Of course she was glad, wasn’t she? “Yes. I still believe the change is good, that a little adventure is good for the spirit.” So what if things hadn’t gone as she’d expected. She’d learned that expectations and assumptions weren’t the best measuring sticks.

  “You still feel that way when you look around?” One hand perched at her waist, Mutter pointed to the rolling countryside and knee-high grasses surrounding them.

  “Not exactly adventurous.”

  Mutter shook her head. “Windy, and the same. Like we’re walking past the same weed, crossing the same draw, and seeing the same hill in the distance. Over and over, the same.”

  Anna couldn’t argue. The monotony of the past couple of weeks had niggled at her, too.

  “I miss seeing trees.” Mutter sighed. “And not just crabapples or redbuds.”

  “We’ll see plenty of trees when we get to the Rockies and the Sierras.”

  “Let us hope I can wait that long, dear.”

  Anna was pondering the meaning of Mutter’s statement when the oxen stopped suddenly, pushing against the horse tethered to the wagon in front of them. The train had come to a halt.

  Mutter tensed. “Why did we stop?”

  “Someone probably has a tired animal or a broken spoke.”

  “Then why hasn’t Caleb or one of the other hands ridden by to tell us so?”

  Anna shrugged and stepped out of the line to look ahead. “I can’t see anything from here.”

  “Indians!” Davonna Kamden’s fearful cry caused a wave of rumbling up and down the line.

  Mutter left Anna’s side and scrambled up onto the spokes of the wagon and over the seat.

  “We don’t really know that there are Indians,” Anna said. “Mrs. Kamden, uh, gets excited over nothing sometimes.”

  “Come in here with me, anyway.”

  Anna shook her head. “I need to see to the animals if we’re going to be stopped for a while.”

  The oxen reared against the yoke, trying to give themselves some space.

  Mutter poked her face through the pucker in the canvas. “What was that?”

  “Just the cows letting the horse know they don’t like the situation.”

  “Well, they’re not alone.”

  Anna sighed. She was weary of all this too but wasn’t about to admit to it. Not when it had been her idea.

  “It’s Indians!” A man’s voice. Oliver Rengler’s?

  “That wasn’t Davonna.” Mutter didn’t come to the opening in the canvas this time.

  “No. But even if it is Indians, I’m sure there’s nothing to be afraid of. We’ve seen the villages and camped near them. The captain is probably only exchanging niceties.”

  “I hardly think that’s a good idea.”

  Shouts began riding the wind. “They’re blocking the road!”

  Anna’s heart raced.

  “There’s twenty of ’em.”

  The oxen snorted and stamped the ground. Anna’s sweaty palms were barely able to grasp the lead rope.

  The shouts continued. “They’re dressed for war!”

  “Your großvater is out there!” Mutter cried.

  Anna stepped out around the Becks’ wagon as far as the rope would allow. “I still don’t see any Indians, Mutter.” Or Großvater. Or Caleb or Boney. As a precaution, she moved back behind the Becks’ wagon.

  “I have to lie down,” Mutter said.

  Anna listened as Mutter climbed onto a crate, then a barrel, and into her squeaking hammock.

  Within a few minutes, Großvater rode up, his face free of tension. “Had us a little excitement.”

  “Was it Indians?” Anna asked.

  “It was. About ten of them.”

  How was it that Mutter had come from this man? One would’ve thought he’d just participated in a sport, not faced a potential enemy.

  “Friendly Indians who wanted a toll.”

  “A toll?”

  Großvater nodded. “That’s what the captain called it. A trade, of sorts. He gave them some blankets, and they were happy.”

  “If it was a trade, what did they give us?”

  “Directions, bead necklaces, and an open road.” He glanced around, then up at the empty seat. “Your mutter get scared?”

  Anna nodded and pointed to the wagon.

  He swung down from the saddle. “Did she eat?”

  “A morsel.”

  A shadow deepened the wrinkles framing his blue eyes. “I wish all this wasn’t so hard on her.”

  A wish Anna shared. But in her heart, she knew the trip wasn’t really any harder for Mutter than daily life in Saint Charles had been.

  40

  Sometime before the horn blew Thursday morning, a light rain started and added a steady rhythm to Anna’s steps on the road west. Rutherford Wainwright had read from the Scripture that morning since Caleb had left early to scout with Frank. That suited Anna just fine. Of course, she was happy for Caroline and couldn’t begrudge the talk of her plans to wed Garrett, but it seemed all Anna could think about was her disappointment in Caleb and how foolish she’d been to believe she might have had a future with him.

  By midafternoon, the Boone’s Lick Company had caught up to Caleb and Frank and set up camp. Since the rain had ceased and the clouds cleared, those who were anxious for supplies and a dose of civilization were making the short ride to the outpost before supper. Anna rode toward Rock Creek with Mutter, Caroline, Hattie, and Lorelei Beck. Großvater rode just ahead of them with Arvin Beck and the two Rengler brothers.

  Rock Creek wasn’t as big a settlement as Anna had hoped. A small cemetery. A mill. A handful of cabins. It was about twenty buildings short of a town.

  Resting her hand on the pommel, Mutter leaned toward Anna. “It’s not as nice as Independence, but it’s stationary and there’s at least some civilization.”

  Anna drew in a deep breath. Mutter wouldn’t consider staying here, would she?

  “I know you want to go all the way to California, dear, but
I would be happy to stay here.”

  “You wanted trees.”

  Mutter sighed. “What a person wants and what they’ll settle for are not the same thing.”

  Anna shook her head and turned to her friends.

  “Hmm.” Hattie tapped her chin. “Where shall we go first?”

  All the women laughed but Mutter. Anna smiled. They followed Hattie and tethered their horses to the hitching rail in front of a cabin with a shingle hanging out front identifying it as a general store. Minutes later, Anna and Mutter had sold their candles to the bald storekeeper. Each of the women purchased minimal supplies. Mutter added a nickel’s worth of horehound.

  “Ooh, he has a soda barrel.” Hattie turned toward the assortment of stools placed in front of a rough-hewn counter. She nearly brushed Lorelei’s forehead with the brim of her hat in her excitement. “Doesn’t a soda and a leisurely visit sound delightful?”

  “It does to me.” Anna looked at Mutter. “It might wash out some of the dust.”

  The portly storekeeper shuffled behind the counter. “Warm sarsaparilla’s all I got for you, ladies.”

  “Sarsaparilla is what we’ll have, then. Thank you.” A grin tipped Hattie’s mouth as she seated herself on a stool across from the storekeeper. “The men will be awhile, availing themselves of all the finery the lumberyard has to offer.”

  Lorelei slid onto the stool beside her. “I’m in no hurry to return to camp.”

  Anna nodded and sat on a stool. She didn’t blame Lorelei in the least for wanting to make the most of her time away from camp. Her husband seemed nice enough, but her father-in-law almost always looked and acted like he’d been sucking lemons. Even in Mutter’s worst moods, she seemed a harmless ant compared to the cantankerous Emery Beck.

  Mutter laid a hand on Anna’s shoulder. “You go ahead, dear. I’ll find Vater and ride back with him. That way I can start supper nice and leisurely like.”

  Anna stood. “I don’t have to—”